"The key moments I've chosen in my book are not intended to be comprehensive, but rather chosen because they ask questions that interest me and provide some insight into how Churchill's approach was shaped and changed by the war." "And to challenge some of the more simplistic assumptions about Churchill's wartime ministry. "My aim has been to put the spotlight on history in the making," says Packwood. In his new book, Packwood, who has worked with Churchill's archive papers for more than two decades, seeks to understand how he arrived at some of his crucial decisions, highlighting some of the emotion, humanity, uncertainty, complexity and nuance that are often missing whenever Churchill is discussed. "With hindsight, we know that it was achieved, despite enormous cost, and that with it, Churchill secured his place in history as an iconic figure and famous orator. "What the speech did not contain was any substance or insight on exactly how the new PM would deliver victory," says Packwood.
It begins in typescript, but then, after just a handful of lines, degenerates into a hand-written scrawl that itself peters out just before reaching the most famous lines. Yet for this most important of speeches, delivered only three days after taking high office, and critical in setting the tone for his new administration, only a single page survives in Sir Winston's vast archive at Churchill College, Cambridge. Churchill normally prepared extremely thoroughly for his speeches according to Allen Packwood, a world authority on Churchill, director of the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge University, and author of the new book 'How Churchill Waged War'.
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